MovieChat Forums > An American Werewolf in London (1981) Discussion > A Good Movie But Not Scary

A Good Movie But Not Scary

posted 3 years ago by PhotonDude (6)
15 replies | jump to latest

An American Werewolf In London if you ask me is more funny than scary. It belongs in the comedy department not the horror department. I do know that AWIL is regarded as one of the best if not the best werewolf movies of all time, and Im not debating that, its just that it doesn't score high on the horror scale. I can think of other werewolf movies that are much scarier than AWIL.

If you ask me I would say AWIL is about as scary as the movie Ghostbusters which came out a few years later and which was also a big hit. Ghostbusters can be scary at times but both movies are more funny than scary and both movies belong in the comedy department not the horror department.

[–] stones78 (426) 3 years ago

agree, the Howling is scarier too.

[–] scopeland28 (107) 3 years ago

The only scary part is when they’re walking the Moors and the growling starts.

[–] DoctorThirteen (10226) 3 years ago

It could have been very scary if they hadn't had so many comic scenes. The part where the boys are stalked on the moor, for instance, or the tube station attack, are fantastically tense. More of that and less humour would have made a great out and out horror film.

[–] jriddle73 (318) 3 years ago

The humor made it a much better horror flick. It endeared the characters to the viewer, so you didn't want to see terrible things happen to them.

[–] DoctorThirteen (10226) 3 years ago

Oh, I'm absolutely not criticising the humour. I love the film. I'm just saying that without it it could have been a very different horror film, one that could have worked as a balls-out horror.

[–] R_Kane (15828) 3 years ago

And the OP just described why this is the werewolf movie of choice for people who don’t actually like werewolf movies.

This is no more a hardcore werewolf movie than fucking Teen Wolf.

[–] TheArgentinian (6432) 3 years ago

It's the kind of movie you watch as a young boy.

[–] spurtle467 (1498) 3 years ago

I agree with what others are saying. As far as being scary goes, it's lacking for a lot of the movie. It had a good build up to the first attack on the moors which was tense and atmospheric. Sadly the rest of the movie isn't quite as interesting for me. It's not a criticism as such, it's just the direction they wanted to take the movie in.

It's definitely not a horror classic in the same way movies like Alien, The Shining, or The Exorcist are.

[–] strntz (10816) 3 years ago

Off topic, but I remember Alien being the first movie I ever fell asleep in, and I was in my early 20s at the time of release. It was so dark I couldn't see what the heck was going on, so I closed my eyes and listened to it instead. The rest is history. I don't know if it was the photography or if the projector was running on an old lamp, but it was dark. I never saw it again, even on TV.

[–] spurtle467 (1498) 3 years ago

I highly recommend revisiting it and maybe with more light around next time. One of the most effectively scary horror films ever IMO.

[–] millsey72 (9557) 2 years ago

I always thought the 2 scariest werewolf movies are The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney and Teen Wolf with Michael J Fox. Both are very frightening

[–] Tongue (445) a year ago

I agree with everything you said. As a kid I looked at AWIL as a horror movie . I just watched it again for the first time in decades and it didn’t feel like a horror movie aside from a couple scenes. I was shocked at how non-scary it was

[–] Roguemail (1564) a year ago

Do people not realise that AWIL was intentionally meant to be a mixture of comedy and horror? It was never meant to be a straight horror film. Movies can mix genres, it's done all the time.